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Comment by DeepDuh | Hacker News Reader

I don't think you can compare it to stories. The only things programming has in common with stories is words and typing. What's different?

A story can't be 'wrong' as long as the grammar is used correctly. There (usually) are no hard requirements on the outcome or even the resource use of a story.

I'd rather compare programming to writing (classic) poems. Poems have a fixed structure, so the author needs to be economical and plan ahead with the syllables he uses and the story elements he introduces. While the outcome is still more or less open, we have to count in the artistic element (which is somewhat missing in programming), so this might introduce enough cognitive workload on the author to compare.

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As a matter of fact, doing both, i think you can.

But in my opinion, the question is more : does every single people on earth like programming enough to get into it, instead of getting into something they enjoy more ?

Reading is easy, using an Iphone is easy. Bladesmithing, or repairing engines all day long is difficult, as is programming, as is writing for a living, or any other activity you don't enjoy doing on a daily basis for about 40 years.

It all boils down to (minimum) enjoyment of one's job.

Probably not. However I think there might be more of us if more children got to play with something like lego mindstorms or MIT's scratch or some other sort of fun programming games. I'm actually looking forward to Notch's new game a lot (programmable spaceships with a simulated CPU, ram and stuff). Sounds fun (maybe not for children though).

And i do agree with that. (and Notch's new game too by the way!)

I think I agree, but that Every single person does not write for a living - although writing will at some point be an irreduciable part of their job, because widespread literacy is fantastically useful and value generating

A story can't be 'wrong' as long as the grammar is used correctly.

Sure it can, have a murder mystery where Joe kills bob in the library with the revolver. Only problem is Joe was in Monte Carlo, and bob was Austin at the time of the murder, and there is no twist remote tele-presence robot. Stories must have internal logical consistency for them to work well. Something like Oceans 11 wouldn't have worked if there had been concurrency issues.

"Unreliable narrator" stories can be "wrong" in the way you describe. cf. American Psycho.

There are plenty of stories where unrealistic things happen, eg. JP Donleavy's scene transitions where people melt from one place to another (which are stylistic devices, not sci-fi).

This is a whole rabbit-hole (pun intended ...)

Even then I would argue that everyone can learn the basic structure of a poem and start writing one.

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